CHICAGO, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Cars.com announced today its new sponsorship of ESPN and ESPN2 Saturday Afternoon College Basketball beginning Feb. 3. The presenting sponsorship launches Cars.com's 2007 media campaign, the company's largest to date.
The sponsorship comes on the heels of the site's sponsorship of ESPN Saturday Afternoon College Football, which ran throughout the fall. Since 2004, ESPN and its properties have anchored the Cars.com's media campaign. Through sponsorships of top-rated programs such as "SportsCenter" and "NFL Draft," Cars.com reached a highly qualified audience, working to drive traffic to its site and increase awareness of its brand.
"We are excited to extend our advertising presence on ESPN through sponsorship of Saturday Afternoon College Basketball," said Carolyn Crafts, Cars.com vice president of marketing. "Our continued investment in marketing on top networks such as ESPN is driving more car shoppers to our site and to our dealer advertisers."
Valued at $100 million, the 2006 Cars.com marketing campaign reached more than 200 million consumers. This contributed to a 13 percent increase in site visits over 2005 in spite of a soft automotive market and a decline in automotive sales. Also illustrating the impact of Cars.com marketing efforts and site enhancements, Cars.com contacts to its dealers were up more than 40 percent.
About Cars.com
Partnered with more than 200 leading metro newspapers, television stations and their websites, Cars.com is the most comprehensive destination for those looking to buy or sell a new or used car. The site lists more than 2 million vehicles from 13,000 dealer customers, classified advertisers and private parties to offer consumers the best selection of new and used cars online, as well as the content, tools and advice to support their shopping experience. Recently selected by Forbes.com as a Best of the Web site for car shopping, Cars.com combines powerful inventory search tools and new-car configuration with pricing information, photo galleries, buying guides, side-by-side comparison tools, original editorial content and reviews to help millions of car shoppers connect with sellers each month.
Launched in June 1998, Cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures, LLC, ( http://classifiedventures.com ), which is owned by leading media companies, including Belo , Gannett Co., Inc. , The McClatchy Company , Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company .